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Evam tu sanjayassāvi, pāvakammaṇirāsave | Bhavakoḍi sanciyaṁ kammaṁ, tavasā ņijjarijjai ||
Uttaradhyayana, 30.6.
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That is Like this, once the fresh sinful karmic influx stops, through penance the restrained aspirant can destroy and shed the karmic bondages accumulated over billions of previous lives.
Savvabhūyappabhūyassa, samaṁ bhūyāiṁ pāsao | Pihiyāsavassa dantassa, pāvaṁ kammam na bandhai || Daśavaikālika, 4.9.
That is The sense conquered soul that sees, visualises, understands and accepts all living beings as equal to his own self stops the karmic influx and does not incur any karmic bondage.
Eso pañca ṇamokkāro, savvapāvappaṇāsano | Mangalāṇaṁ ca savvesiṁ, paḍhamaṁ havai mangalaṁ ||
That is - This five-fold obeisance destroys all sins and out of all auspiciousnesses it is the chief auspiciousness.
In all these canonical quotations there is the teaching to destroy the sinful karmic bondages, to stop sinful karmic influx and not to incur any sinful karmic influx and bondage. There is no teaching to the effect that the auspicious and meritorious karmic bondages should be destroyed or their influx stopped or that they should not be incurred. From this, only the abandoning of sins and not that of merit is proved.
In Jaina philosophy what defiles and tarnishes the soul has been said to be sin and what purifies it and helps in manifesting its natural qualities has been said to be merit. Thus, sin and merit have been considered as the opposites of each other. According to Jaina precept any increase in sin reduces the intensity of merit and any decrease in sin increases the intensity of merit. While ascending the ladder of spiritual development as the sins are left behind the intensity of merit keeps increasing. The practice of restraint and consequent purity of volition give expression to qualities of compassion and result in
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